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About the Book
This is the ninth volume of Dr. Justin Glenn’s comprehensive history that traces the “Presidential line” of the Washingtons. Volume One began with the immigrant John Washington, who settled in Westmoreland Co., Va., in 1657, married Anne Pope, and became the great-grandfather of President George Washington. It continued the record of their descendants for a total of seven generations. Subsequent volumes two through eight continued this family history for an additional eight generations, highlighting most notable members (volume two) and tracing lines of descent from the royalty and nobility of England and continental Europe (volume three).
Volume nine collects over 8,500 descendants of the recently discovered line of William Wright (died in Franklin Co., Va., ca. 1809). It also provides briefer accounts of five other early Wright families of Virginia that have often been mentioned by researchers as close kinsmen of George Washington, including: William Wright (died in Fauquier Co., Va., ca. 1805), Frances Wright and her husband Nimrod Ashby, and William Wright (died in Greensville Co., Va., by 1827). A cumulative index will complete the series as volume ten.
Reviews
“I am convinced that this work will be of wide interest to historians and academics as well as members of the Washington family itself. Although the surname Washington is perhaps the best known in American history and much has been written about the Washington family for well over a century, it is surprising that no comprehensive family history has been published. Justin M. Glenn’s The Washingtons: a Family History finally fills this void for the branch to which General and President George Washington belonged, identifying some 63,000 descendants. This is truly a family history, not a mere tabulation of names and dates, providing biographical accounts of many of the descendants of John Washington who settled in Westmoreland County, Virginia, in 1657. . . . Each individual section is followed by extensive listings of published and manuscript sources supporting the information presented and errors of identification in previous publications are commented upon as appropriate.”
- John Frederick Dorman, editor of The Virginia Genealogist (1957-2006) and author of Adventurers of Purse and Person
“Decades of reviewing Civil War books have left me surprised and delighted when someone applies exhaustive diligence to a topic not readily accessible. Dr. Glenn surely meets that standard with the meticulous research that unveils the Washington family in gratifying detail—many of them Confederates of interest and importance.”
- Robert K. Krick, author of The Smoothbore Volley that Doomed the Confederacy, Stonewall Jackson at Cedar Mountain, and Lee’s Colonels
Justin Glenn was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, and raised in Glendale and Phoenix, Arizona. He graduated from Stanford University [B.A., Classics, 1967; magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa] and was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at Princeton University [M.A., Classics, 1969; Ph.D., Classics, 1970]. His career as a professor of Classics at the University of Georgia and Florida State University spanned thirty-five years, and he has published over seventy articles, notes, and reviews in his field. A distant cousin of George Washington, he has served as Registrar General of the National Society of the Washington Family Descendants since 2002.
